MONUMENT NO. 338425

Excavations in 1849 uncovered the remains of a Roman building, a bath suite, roof and flue tiles, sandstone roof slates, pottery and coins were found. Probably the site of a villa occupied from the mid-2nd to the 4th century.

[Area centred SP 54900895]"A fragment of a Roman house with 'massive walls of solid masonry', but much robbed was excavated in the spring of 1849 by Llewellyn Jewitt in 2 fields on the bounds of Headingtoon and Elsfield parishes, 500 yds NW of Wick Farm [SP 55250855] and 3/4 miles W. of the Alchester-Dorchester Ro. road.... The plan shows a room 14' x 10'7", D, with a concrete floor, and apparently, the corner of a bath building - a furnace-arch of stone, B, and a small bath, A, 3'10" x 2'3 1/2" & 1'6" deep,' floored with concrete 1'2 1/2" thick and lined with red plaster; here was 'a quantity of small bones'. Not far away, 3' below the foundations, was a stone drain and in the same corner were flue-tiles, roof tiles and limestone slates. 'Traces of wall and rooms covered nearly the whole of the two fields'." Finds including iron implements and fragments of a fibula, a brass boss fixed to iron, a bell, a lead plummet, a moulded stone with traces of an inscr: a "carload" of pottery including a little decorated Samian, Caster, New Forest, local ware and fragments of at least 200 mortaria-mostly C3rd-C4th: and coins of Probus and Postumus from the bath, and others of Tetricus I and II, Constantius I, Helena, Constantine I, Constaus and Gratian. "The evidence suggests that the occupation began in the middle of the C2nd, increased much in the late C3rd, and extended well into the middle of the C4th or later.As quantities of partially burned clay and masses of 'crossilled' earth and portions of vitrified flooring were found, some industry -and the number of mortaria suggests pottery-making-was perhaps carried on here: one may note here the remains of a thick bar of iron on a flat stone, overlying a large heap of wood ash and charcoal. The signs of burning are too much either for a hypocaust or destruction by fire". Foundations apparently destroyed, and mechanical ploughing in 1920 revealed nothing. Pieces of green glazed pottery and a mould for a head probably Medieval (a). (1)

As above. The hedge and ditch shown in the plan are the parish boundary. The "mould for a head" was of red clay [and as illustrated does not look Roman]. Same plan and illustrations of pottery. (2)

An indeciperable cropmark appears at SP 55250901 'B'. (3)

The site marked on the Ashmolean Museum 6 [at SP 54830878] 'A' should be treated with reserve. (4)

Human skeleton N of Wick Farm. (Roman) (a). (5)

The area is under permanent pasture and nothing is visible on the ground or on RAF and OS A.Ps. The site cannot be deduced from the JBAA plan and there is no local tradition of any precise site, that given by Taylor being very approximate. (6)

Additional reference. (7)

OX 6 Listed as the possible site of a Roman villa. (8)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Salzman, L.F. (ed) 1939 The Victoria history of the county of Oxford, Volume I